The mother of prominent Egyptian political activist and blogger Alaa Abd El Fattah began a hunger strike yesterday protesting her son’s detention by the country’s military council. Fattah was arrested last week after being accused of instigating clashes between military forces and Coptic Christians nearly a month ago at the state television building, Maspero. At least 28 people were killed in the incident. As calls among activists...

A pair of Egyptian police officers were sentenced Wednesday to eight years in prison for the beating death of 28-year-old man. The 2010 killing of Khaled Said helped to spark the Egyptian revolution that ultimately toppled the regime of Hosni Mubarak. The officers were both charged with manslaughter. Members of Said’s family and pro-democracy protesters argued the sentence was too light. Two Egyptian youth leaders, Ahmed Maher and Basem...

Occupy Wall Street received a surprise visit Monday from several leading Egyptian activists, including 26-year-old Asmaa Mahfouz. She is one of the founders of the April 6 Youth Movement, which is the group credited with helping to organize the January 25 protests that eventually toppled the regime of former president Hosni Mubarak. Prior to the protest in January, Mahfouz recorded a YouTube video urging people to fill Tahrir Square. Democracy...

October 9th is a day that will not soon be forgotten in Egypt. Chaos and bloodshed engulfed the streets of Cairo in some of the worst violence the country has seen since the ouster of Hosni Mubarak eight months ago. Read Democracy Now!'s Sharif Abdel Kouddous' report on the latest developments for The Nation.

As the Occupy Wall Street movement expands across the United States, drawing inspiration from the Arab Spring in Egypt and the protests in Spain, Democracy Now! speaks with former French Resistance fighter, Stéphane Hessel, whose pamphlet-length book, "Time for Outrage," helped inspire some of these uprisings. [includes rush transcript]

In Egypt, at least two dozen people died on Sunday when the Egyptian military attacked a large gathering of Coptic Christian protesters. The violence broke out after a protest in Cairo against an attack on a church in Aswan province last week. Democracy Now! correspondent Sharif Abdel Kouddous was in Cairo and witnessed the killings. "Then the military attacked. They came rushing forward, beating anyone in their path. Then they started...

Over the weekend, Egyptian political parties dropped a threat to boycott upcoming parliamentary elections, the first multi-candidate vote since the ouster of longtime president, Hosni Mubarak. The parties agreed to take part in the vote after Egypt’s ruling military council vowed to amend a voting law that would have made it easier for former Mubarak allies to return to government. But the military council’s shift fell short of...

In our extended interview with Noam Chomsky, he discusses the case against participating in Libya’s civil war, the increasing isolation of Israel in the Middle East, and his shock at the Republican presidential candidates’ positions on issues such as climate change. [includes rush transcript]

Democracy Now correspondent, Sharif Abdel Kouddous, reports in The Nation magazine that one of Egypt’s most prominent activists faces prosecution in a military court for speaking out against the Supreme Council of Armed Forces that came to power following Mubarak’s ouster.